West Virginia Democrat. [volume] (Charles Town, W. Va.) 1885-1890, 1887-07-15

man who had set his heart on max
ing a public improvement in which
he saw an advantage to the public
and fortune to himself. Thanks
to that corrupt political system SO
dear to the hearts of our respectable
"saviors of society,"" neither he nor
any one else could obtain fran
chise for Broadway railroad with
out bribing a majority of the board
of aldermen. Jacob Sharp brihed
them. In this he doubtless knew
that he was doing something moral
ly wrong; but it was moral wrong
acquiesced in, if not justified, by the
code of the society in which he NOV
ed. He "toQk the world as he found
it," as practical men" do, and had
he refused to take the opportunity
that was offered him, on the ground
that it was wicked to bribe alder
men, he would have been laughed at
as ''milksop' by his associates and
hackers, and might at once have
abandoned any idea of ever being
trusted by moneyed men as the pro-
moter ana manager of great finan-
cial enterprise.
Jacob Sharp doubtless felt that
what he was doing was wrong if
judged by a strict code of morality;
but it was just such wrong as the
rich men of New York do every day
without any one seeming to think
any the worse of them. just such a
thing as he himself had done before
without losing one scintilla of the
respect of those for whose respect he
cared. Jacob Sharp's view of the
case was doubtless that which at
tains in railroad offices and bank
parlors and among the respectable
congregations of pro-poverty church
es-that the crime attaches to the
bribed rather than to the briber.
He may have looked upon the alder
men who took his thousand dollar
bills as a set of corrupt scoundrels ;
but if they chose to fill their pock-
cts by prostituting their official po-
sitions, what business was that of
his? The idea that he was doing
anything personally dishonorable
probably never entered his mind.
Why should it? He was aided in
the transaction by legal firm of
high standing and eminent respec-
liability, who would have kicked out
OF their Office any client who should
have dared invite them to aid him
in planning burglary. His asso-
ciates, who knew his plans and
helped to carry them out, were gen.
tlemen of unblemished commercial
honor and social repute, who would
have exploded with righteous wrath
had any receiver of stolen goods in
vited them to share in picayune
robbery. His purchase of the fran
chise from the aldermen was matter
of common fame, yet no man among
his business or social acquaintances
uttered a word of condemnation or
reproof, or gave him any whit less
cordial greeting; and no investor
hesitated to buy from him at retail
what he had bought from the alder
men at wholesale. The same sort OF
thing has been notoriously done on
even larger scale by men who sit in
the front pews of churches and are
looked up to as successful men.
AS he sits in his prison parlor to-
day with the shadow of the State
prison upon him, it is but natural
that Jacob Sharp should regard
himself rather as unfortunate tn an
as a criminal.
1t is well tb at Jacob Sharp should
go to prison.even though thousand
men as gnilty as he be left outside.
But it is idle to hope to cure corrup-
tion by such means. Judges from
the bench may utter condemnation
and reprocf; preachers from the
pulpit may thunder warnings and
appeals; the press may deliver its
platitudes, and the politicians vocif-
crate their outcries for reform, and
even an occasional boodler sent to
prison, but still where the carcass is
there will the eagles be gathered to-
gether, and the only study Of the
unclean feasters will be to avoid, not
publicity, but legal detection.
Consider now we train our boys
for the business of life. Consider the
ideals we hold up to our young
girls. How carefully we point our
children to the examples of men who
have succeeded, and warn them
against the examples of men who
have failed. Succeeded and failed
i'm what? In carrying out that
golden rule which underlies all true
morality and is the basis of true so.
cial economy? No! The examples
we uphold for their imitation and
admiration are of men who have
succeeded in eIuding poverty and
grasping wealth; the failures
against which We warn them are OF